A lot of people seem to be losing sight of the San Antonio Spurs (huge surprise there right?) as this season progresses and believe that is a mistake. This is a team that was thirty seconds from a championship, and yes they are a year older but their defense has been greatly improved of late as it was in Wednesday’s win.

“We knew we had to stop guys like John Wall and Bradley Beal becauee they had been playing very well. I thought our team did well overall on pick-and-rolls and transition defense. I think this is where we want to be defensively,” said Tony Parker after the game.

The Spurs are riding a pretty nice momentum wave here and it could end up leading to another number one seed in the Western Conference. People seem to write them off every year, and though they had some injury luck last season, they also made the plays when they counted. The development of Kawhi Leonard into a young superstar is definitely key, because Tim Duncan eventually has to break down….. [crickets] right?

The only problem? People have been writing that for years and Duncan came a bunny hook shot away from having a shot at chip number five. If you think that wasn’t enough motivation for Duncan, then how about the messy offseason divorce that probably has the greatest power forward of all time even more in love with the game of basketball than he used to be.